Several counties with high Coronavirus infection rates could soon have mask-wearing and social distancing mandates to slow the spread of the disease. Mississippi now has 32 thousand 888 cases of the Coronavirus and more than 11 hundred confirmed deaths. Governor Tate Reeves says with the spike in cases, he's concerned that residents are not wearing masks. He says “County specific orders are most likely imminent. Additional restrictions on social distancing and potentially mask mandates. We’ve done it before, we’ve done it successfully before, and it is now likely time to do it again.”
Governor Reeves says he understands why some people are against having the government tell them what to do, but he says the actions of one person should not be allowed to hurt others. “The problem when you’re talking about a virus is if you get it, you haven’t just done something bad to yourself, it’s likely that you’re going to spread it to someone else,” says Reeves. “And that’s where the line changes. From you doing something dumb that hurts yourself, to you doing something that hurts other people.”
State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs says the state’s healthcare system is at serious risk of becoming overwhelmed. He has issued a public health mandate that restricts some surgeries at hospitals in 6 counties. He says “Within the Jackson area and other places, we have seen zero ICU beds day after day after day in numerous hospitals. And so we did have to take this action restricting elective surgeries that require hospitalization overnight. Such that we can make more bedspace available for people with serious illness or with Coronavirus.”
On Monday, the Health Department tested nearly 300 lawmakers and staff at the state Capitol after identifying an outbreak. They have confirmed 36 positive cases, 26 of whom are legislators.
